The party's acting shadow minister for communications, Stephen Jones, told iTWire in response to a query that work was continuing on the party's broadband policy for the next election.
In its draft policy for the next election, the word "fibre" has been left out, raising questions in some quarters that the party was planning to follow the current rollout policy for the national broadband network.
The relevant portion of the draft policy says: "Labor will hold the Liberal Government to account for the rollout of a second-rate NBN, and work to deliver for all Australians a network that is fast, reliable and affordable."
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But Jones said: "Labor is committed to fast, reliable and affordable Internet – and, of course, that means more fibre.
"We continue to work on our NBN policy and will have more to say in the lead-up to the next federal election.
"Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate copper NBN is a mess and leaves both consumers and taxpayers worse off."
He added that the final official platform would be released later this year.
When construction of the NBN was begun in 2009, the Labor Party was in power and it envisaged fibre being rolled out to the premises for 93% of the populace, with the remaining 7% to be supplied with connectivity through either wireless or satellite.
The rollout became a political issue when the Coalition Government that took power in 2013 decided to change the technology of the network to what it called a multi-technology mix.
The MTM includes fibre-to-the-node, HFC cable, satellite, and wireless, apart from fibre-to-the-premises which is being provided only to new dwellings.
As the MTM plan and the connections provided have come under increasing criticism, fibre-to-the-distribution-point, which considerably reduces the copper lead-in to premises — what the network builder NBN Co calls fibre-to-the-curb — has been introduced as well.
The rollout of the NBN is scheduled to be completed in 2020. The next federal election can be held between August this year and November 2019.
